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Remote Golf and Tennis Workouts

Remote Golf and Tennis Workouts

by | Feb 10, 2021 | Training

— Lifetime Performance

Interested in golf and tennis workouts, but don’t want to join a gym. We offer remote golf and tennis workouts.

We have the answer you are looking for! Contact us directly to set up a golf or tennis specific evaluation today! We can do it remotely in the comfort of your own home. We offer remote golf and tennis workouts. Allow us to build you the program you need for your game using our state of the art Fitness app complete with video instruction, detailed pictures and written explanations for each exercise.

9 + 10 =

Remote Golf and Tennis Workouts

Online Training and Remote Programming Available Now!

by | Mar 19, 2020 | Training

— Lifetime Performance

Online Training and Remote Programming Available Now!

We have closed our doors temporarily due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, but we remain available for customized programs via our App “Lifetime Performance” found in the App Store! Contact me directly to set up a golf or tennis specific evaluation or if you would like a personalized program custom developed with the equipment you have at home!
Stay healthy and safe out there…do your part!

5 + 6 =

The Junior Tennis Player Dilemma

The Junior Tennis Player Dilemma

by | Apr 8, 2018 | Performance, Training

How Much Is Enough – The Junior Golf Player Dilemma

Working in South Florida as a Sports Performance Specialist, I come across a lot of athletes who play their sport year-round. While this does have its obvious advantages…getting in a lot of practice, more options for competitive play, full time coaching, etc., the never slow down pace can be detrimental to the athlete’s physical health as well as their mental well-being.  Tennis is a great example of a sport where year-round play is commonplace. The concept of more is better seems to be shared all too often by parents and coaches. While on a surface level this sounds like the right approach, when we look at the research, the reality is we might be doing more harm than good.

It is important to remember why our children got involved with the sport to begin with. It was fun! For the child to exceed at the sport long term it must stay fun to them! There is a fine line between motivating your child to stay disciplined to achieve the most out of their potential and becoming overbearing, forcing continuous play. Growing up I played golf in high school. I was not very good my freshman year averaging 46 for nine holes. My sophomore year I improved exponentially, averaging 39. Part of that was due to my father joining a country club over the summer. This obviously allowed me to play and practice more often. I should mention that I grew up in New Jersey, a state known for its high temperatures in the summers and low temperatures in the winter. This made playing and practicing from November till May nearly impossible as it was just too cold.  As a result, I played other sports! By the end of my senior year I earned a scholarship to a division one school for golf. This was accomplished by only playing and practicing for half a year and without much coaching supervision.  Yes, I worked hard, but I had other interests and because of the forced break due to the weather, I was able to become passionate again about the game every spring. This also kept me healthy as I never had to deal with overuse injuries. You would think my performance would suffer, however each summer I improved and won more and more tournaments. In fact, if you do the research you will see that the best athletes of today in all sports were multi-sport athletes up to the age of about 15.

You might be saying well tennis is different…you need to be playing all the time to get better. The competition is just too stiff. There was a study done in Poland taking over 1000 junior tennis players from over 40 countries and tracking them from 1994 to 2002. The average age was 12 to 13 years old. What they found was the better players as adults were smaller than average for their age, were less powerful, were faster and more agile, started playing tournaments at age 11 and only played about 45 to 50 singles matches per year. They also only practiced around 10 hours per week which was below average for the group. Some of the athletes documented in the study were Roger Federer, Kim Clijsters and many other notable tennis professionals. They also participated in more fitness sessions than their peers as juniors during the study. Their parents were supportive but not overly involved.

In another study done taking into account 1200 kids between years of 8 eight and 13, The researcher found that kids who spent more hours a week then their age at that one sport were 70% more likely to have a serious injury or burn out from the sport.

ITF recommendations:
9-11 yr olds: One hour a day, 3 to 4 times a week playing or practicing tennis. 70% of their time on tennis and 30% of their time on other sports.
12-14 yr olds: 2 to 3 hours a day, 4 to 5 times a week practicing or playing tennis with fitness included. 85% of their time on tennis and 15% of their time on other sports.

My recommendation would be to play multiple sports up until freshman year in high school and make sure to take time off throughout the calendar year…that means no tennis. We need to make sure the sport stays fun and that our children continue to play at a high-level while reducing the risk of injury by monitoring their hours each week.

The 10 Minute Law School Workout

The 10 Minute Law School Workout

by | Jun 16, 2017 | Training

The 10 Minute Law School Workout

One of the few things Law School students have is free time.  If by chance time does happen to free up during the day or evening, it will most likely be spent filled with extra studying or re-fueling with that third cup of 1000 calorie Mocha Latte Frappacino Coolata (made that up, but might actually exist!) from Starbucks .  Either way, that hour just got filled up with extra stress or a sugar high that a 1st grader on Halloween Night couldn’t recover from.  While both options may seem good at the time, energy, focus, drive and concentration will suffer.  This issue hits very close to home as I am currently supporting my girlfriend as she pursues her Law degree.  When I say “supporting” I don’t necessarily mean monetarily, but more in the realm of helping her keep her sanity!

My girlfriend loves to exercise, but like most of us with little free time, working out often gets pushed to the back burner and soon forgotten entirely.  When we encountered this problem we assumed it would be easily rectified by budgeting time towards going to the university gym or using her apartment complex’s gym.  When even this got too difficult, we had to think of other options.  Since time was of the essence, we had to think of a way to fit in a good workout with utmost convenience.  In other words, no traveling to gyms, no long bouts of boring cardio and no expensive pieces of equipment.  What then are my options you might ask??….well, about 10sq/ft, a countdown timer app on your Iphone, a TRX Strap, some dumbells, and most importantly your body.

The 10 Minute Law School Workout goes like this:

Set your timer to countdown from 10 minutes.  You are much more likely to complete a good hard workout if your tell yourself for the next 10 minutes I am going to exercise.  The time itself is small enough to deter your own laziness, as even 10 minutes of doing anything can’t be that bad.  By setting a time you have now also taken away any ambiguity as to how long you will exercise.  You have a set goal, and an attainable one at that.

Next, you are going to select 4 exercises from 4 different categories of exercise.  For instance, category 1 will be pushing or pressing exercises.  This may include pushups, dumbell overhead pressses, or band presses.  category 2 will be a leg exercise such as lunges, squats, dumbbell swings, or single leg squats.  category 3 is a pulling exercise.  This of course is any exercise that you pull either your own body weight or some form of resistance.  Examples are TRX recline rows, bent over dumbell rows, or pullups.  The 4th category is a core exercise like a plank, side plank, glute bridge or stability ball rollout.  The exercises in each category stress or challenge a different form of human functional movement.  By doing all 4 in a workout, you get a good balanced routine that will reduce the likelihood of injury during future workouts and more importantly might help to counteract all those hours of sitting on your rear in the library.

Here are the rules: Complete 10 repetitions of each exercise (excluding the core exercise) before moving on to the next.  Use a timed rep for the core exercise like 30 seconds.  Rest whenever you need it, but fight the urge to look at your timer.  Your goal should be to complete atleast 4 total sets of each exercise.  I can promise you, at the end of 10 minutes you will be sweating.  You will notice that your heart rate has jumped even higher than what it probably gets to when you do your hamster wheel cardio on the elliptical.

While I am sure you know all of the physiological benefits of exercise, what you may not know so much about, is how it affects your concentration, focus and mental acuity immediately after.  The mind and body are not separate entities.  Exercise releases dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephine.  These neurotransmitters help to control thoughts and emotion.  Toxic levels of stress can erode signal pathways in the brain and depression can actually shrink certain areas of the brain.  Exercise helps to release chemicals that can reverse this process and develope the brain much like muscles develope after working out.  When we move and contract our muscles, proteins are released into the blood stream and make there way to the brain to influence our highest thought processes and improve out cognitive function.  John J Ratey talks about this and much more in his book Spark – The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and The Brain.

So, next time you are thinking about waking up an hour early to study before that test, you may want to also include this 10 minute workout blast to jumpstart your concentration levels.  It sure beats the perk of that Mocha Latte Frappacino Coolata 🙂

 

Back Pain And Golf

Back Pain And Golf

by | Feb 3, 2017 | Training

Back Pain And Golf

Back Pain And Golf

You don’t have to be a spine specialist to realize the back doesn’t enjoy bending and twisting and it definitely doesn’t like to do both at the same time. Wait a second, isn’t that the golf swing?  In a nutshell, yes.  The two definitely do not mix.  The consistent sheer force and rotational loading of the spine created by the swing is responsible for 36% of the most common golfing injuries.  The HIGHEST.  It shouldn’t be surprising then, that almost all of us have experienced back pain that has kept us from playing at one point or another.  While the lumbar spine is gifted in its ability to rotate, bend and extend, its primary function is to support the upper body, therefore a high degree of stability is necessary for proper back function.  In most cases of back pain, the individual is lacking  gluteal strength, hip mobility and mid to upper-spine mobility.  These limitations and restrictions place a great demand on the lower back to do more than it is designed to do.  The compensation pattern that results is created by dysfunction, which leads to overloading, which will develop into over usage, which will eventually cause injury and pain.

Knowing this, our posture at set up becomes increasingly important.  Making sure our spine is in a neutral position and our bend comes from the hips can be vital to maintaining spinal health while golfing.  A training program focusing on core stability and hip and thoracic spine mobility will also go far in preventing injury.  In addition, make every effort to sit properly and stand up frequently.  

If you are doing the following exercises to “help” your back, please discontinue them asap.

  • The back rotation machine:  the spine is supposed to move in sync with the pelvis.  When locking down the hips and pelvis you are doing more tissue damage than strength building.
  • The conventional crunch machine:  Here is a herniated disc waiting to happen. Replace this exercise with a standard crunch and your spine will thank you for it.
  • The back extension machine:  This is a physical therapists dream.  Keep banging out reps and you are sure to see one.  Replace this one with the back extension on the physio ball.
Re-Train The Brain

Re-Train The Brain

by | Feb 3, 2017 | Training

Re-Train The Brain

Re-Train The Brain

Golf Swing Training Palm Beach Gardens

I think we have all heard the 10,000 hour or in this case repetition rule.  It takes 10,000 times of doing something to be considered an expert.  Now, I am not sure if this number is research based, but I can tell you that it will take a considerably higher number of repetitions to re-learn a certain movement (golf swing) if we have been doing it incorrectly for most of our life.

Golf Swing Lessons

Any sort of change in the golf swing requires a re-programming of motor skills.  The body has developed a certain way of learning a movement (in this case the golf swing) in accordance with the individual’s flexibility, balance, and stability levels.  More simply put, the body will always take the path of least resistance to execute a golf swing, so breaking that mold means asking the body to do exceed its comfort level.  In addition to the golf pro assigning swing drills (re programming the motor skill) to the student, the golfer must also devote some attention to enhancing the bodies level of tolerance for the new swing pattern i.e. gaining stability, strength, and flexibility.  Once this process begins, the golfer will have a much better chance of making changes on a more permanent level. 

If we hope to make a swing change proper time must be spent re-training the brain to “feel” the proper kinematic movement of the golf swing.  Next time you are at the gym, do some swing drills with your arms across your chest or using a medicine ball in between sets of resistance exercise.  Do the exercises in front of a mirror so you can get the sensory feedback you need to make sure the movement is executed properly.  

Golf Swing Exercises

Examples of some motor learning exercises include separation drills in the following sequence:

  • Seated Stability Ball Rotations – Place your arms across your chest and sit down on a stability ball with good posture (chest our, low back flat).  Practice rotating your torso from side to side while stabilizing your lower body i.e. no hip movement.  Make sure to keep your head still
  • Half-Kneeling Rotations – Get in a half-kneeling position (one knee down) and place your arms across your chest.  Begin to rotate your torso side to side keeping your lower body/knee and head still.  You may find this position difficult to maintain balance
  • Golf Stance Rotations – Get in your golf stance with your arms across your chest.  Begin to rotate your torso in both directions while you keep a stable lower body.  The challenge here will be the coordination of the movement more so than balance.  You will find your hips wanting to rotate with your upper body.
  • Lunge Stance Rotations –  The hardest of the four.  Get into a split stance (one foot out in front of the other) and hinge from the hips as if you are addressing the ball.  Practice rotating your torso in both directions while you maintain lower body stability.  The muscles of the lower body will be significantly challenged in this position.

Perform 10 repetitions for 1-2 sets in between your sets of resistance exercise.